Campus Bytes! PAGE 8A TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1997
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TECHNOLOGY • INTERNET • SOFTWARE • ONLINE ISSUES
Guest Column
UDKi promises more multimedia coverage, service in months ahead
Live football broadcasts, chats new basketball sites to come
Have you ever ridden the Finnish Fling at Worlds of Fun? That's the ride where you stand against the wall of a giant cylinder which spins around, faster and faster, until you're plastered against it by centrifugal force. Then the bottom drops out of the ride
and you're "floating" on the wall. (It's funny, just typing this is making me dizzy).
Running a newspaper website is something like that. You try to get things spinning, keep the project moving, make it exciting... and then the bottom drops out. That's what happened last week when the UDKi lost not only its server but also the data on that server and even the backup for that data.
Andrew Rohrback
webmaster@kansan.com
The event was so complex as to be supernatural, kind of like
that mystical force that keeps you plastered to the side of the spinning ride. Suffice it to say that not only could no one access the site, but all the work we had done this semester was lost as well.
Thanks to the hard work of the entire UDKI staff (essentially consisting of three people), we recovered most of the data. It took us three days, but we returned to service. The whole fiasco taught us one lesson: Just as things are spinning fast enough to keep you floating, look out for when the bottom drops out.
Now that the floor is solidly beneath us again, we can look to the future. Many of you probably saw the full-page advertisement warning you to "prepare to be shocked all over again." October is going to be a major corner in the life of UDKi — the beginning of a new interactivity project. On our priority list:
The Backfield Lounge: Live coverage of football games on the Internet with live-chat capabilities as well. No special software is needed to use the lounge.
Jayhawks basketball site: A totally new site dedicated to Kansas hoops, men's and women's. It's exciting. I wish I could tell you more.
Campus Exchange:
An online marketplace where students can find buyers and sellers for their furniture, computer equipment and other items. This is not
quite as large or as widespread as classified ads but handy for getting rid of that 1977 Ford Fairmount.
That's just the beginning of the October project for UDKi. Look for more opportunities for live chat, games and multimedia coverage from your online campus news source. UDKi is groaning back into its orbit, and we're hoping to keep it spinning for a good while longer. I hope we'll join us for the ride.
Rohrback is an Andover junior in journalism.
Kansas joins regional network
Hardware boost would speed up Internet access
By Daniel E. Thompson dthompson@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Connectivity at the University of Kansas could be cranked up.
Internet access on campus will jump in performance because of an alliance of midwestern states known as the Great Plains Network.
The new network will enable KU students and researchers to manipulate information at faster speeds on the Internet, bringing more complex models, images and data, said Barb Paschke, coordinator of special projects for Kansas Science and Technology Advanced Research (KSTAR), a technology program funded by Kansas State Lottery revenues.
The University hopes to have the new network in place by next spring, said Dave Nordlund, network administrator for the Kansas Research and Education Network, known as KANREN.
Michael Grobe, manager of distributed computing support, said speed changes quality on the Internet.
"Things become something entirely new," he said. "You can view a picture or a book of pictures, but if you can view 24 pictures per second, then it becomes a movie."
One of the greatest benefits of the network is that all of the states have an earth-science program, Grobe said, and that the programs often use satellite imagery, which could be transmitted at hundreds of megabits per second on the new network.
"Things will go quicker, yes," Grobe said, "but it will change the scope of what they do. A network like GPN opens the door for considering transferring this information to both general users and their research colleagues."
Internet access now is provided at 3 megabits per second by dual T1 full-duplex cables, running information in and out of KANREN.
Each state in the network will be connected by a T3 cable, capable of carrying about 45 megabits per second.
But the Internet can only go as fast as the data can be processed for transmission, Nordlund said. Not all connections will be faster.
Jerry Niebaum, the University's
executive director for information services, said that network glitches would not disappear.
"This will be a problem as long as we have a single point of failure," he said.
That single point of failure for the University is at Ellsworth Hall. If the router in Ellsworth Hall goes down, the University's network goes with it, he said.
The network would be funded by the National Science Foundation's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research and by matching contributions from the six states. Although the member schools are still awaiting official confirmation of the grant, member schools expect it to come soon.
"I'm confident we're going to get the funding," Niebaum said.
Paschke said that K-STAR will pay $200,000 toward Kansas' share of the cost of the network. KANREN will contribute $20,000.
Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas will be wired to each other in the $2.7 million network. Missouri will use its own funds to join the network.
"It's the only way to leverage resources," said William Crowe, vice chancellor for information services. "Partnerships are always
the way it goes in this part of the country. We're not Stanford."
An engineering team is discussing the network architecture. The team's next meeting is Oct.11. When it met last summer, it proposed two locations with a switch and a router, one in Kansas City and one in Eros, a small town outside Sioux Falls, S.D.
Traffic on the new network will move as fast as local traffic on KU's Ethernet network. The campus backbone is 100 megabits per second, though all but four buildings are running at 10 megabits per second, Nordlund said. Ethernet cables are half-duplex, meaning that information can run only in one direction.
When data packets from both sides collide, they must be resent, Nordlund said. "At around a 60-percent load, collisions go up, and you really start to see a slowdown." Nordlund said.
Two T1 cables can carry 3.0 megabits per second, which is equivalent to about 6 megabits per second on half-duplex Ethernet.
The new network will offer a way onto the commercial Internet, as well as a connection to Internet 2, a backbone of 45 megabit-per-second connectivity that will link university supercomputers together in the future.
'Baseball Pro'98' simulator strikes out
Excessive realism makes game tedious
By Aaron Knopf
Kansan software reviewer
Software Review
Front Page Sports" "Baseball Pro '98" is one of the most boring computer games I have ever played. I could not enjoy any element of this baseball simulation despite my enthusiasm for real baseball.
Front Page Sports has tried to develop a simulator that goes beyond the play in the virtual ballpark. It has actually crafted a baseball environment. From quickly scanning my menu options, I learned that I could create an association of teams, set up an association's season schedule, including a preseason, and act like a team's general manager by making various roster moves.
The prospect of reading more than 100 pages in the 191-page manual to learn how to use all of these features seemed dreadfully boring. All I really wanted to do was play a good game of computer baseball.
Fortunately, "Baseball Pro '98" allowed me to bypass league- and team-management features to play a basic exhibition game with preset teams.
I chose to play as the St. Louis Cardinals and let the computer manage my opponent, the Atlanta Braves. I entered the ballpark — a computerized Busch Stadium — and was ready to play. The stadium and player graphics were sharp, but I've
definitely seen better. Nevertheless, I was eager to start battling against the formidable Atlanta Braves.
There I was, virtually pitching as Todd Stottlemyre, about to face the lineup. The batter was Kenny Lofton, one of the most complete players in all of baseball. Ready to make my pitch, I pressed the "enter" key. The ball flew from my computerized hand. "STRIKE!" the umpire yelled out to me. The catcher threw the ball back to me. I pressed the "enter" key again, and again and again.
Sometimes the batters stood still, sometimes they swung and missed and sometimes they made contact. Regardless, I didn't do anything but press the "enter" key to simulate the
pitch. There were some other options I could choose before pressing the "enter" key to position my defensive players, but it really didn't seem to matter. If a batter did make contact, the computer would take over and make the necessary defensive play.
When I switched to offense, I experienced the same thing. I had a few options I could choose such as whether to swing at a pitch or take it and what to do with any runners on base. Once I'd chosen my plan, all I had to do was press the "enter" key and watch.
After having realized that I was in a "manage-only" mode that was not much fun when playing against a computer, I quickly quit the game and went about trying to find out how I could change the options to have more control over the players. I tried the "arcade play" style, assuming that it would be more interactive.
Because I do not have a joystick hooked up to my computer, I was forced to use keyboard shortcuts to control my players. On defense, I could choose a pitching style by pressing an arrow key along with the enter key. The computer still controlled the rest of my defensive play. Offensive play was even more difficult because batting became a matter of timing. Now, I had to press the enter key at the right moment to make contact with the pitch. Thrilling, really thrilling.
Once more, I quit the action and sought out ways to make the game more dynamic. I learned how to increase the amount of control I had
Manufacturer: Sierra
Front Page Sports: Baseball
graphics ★★★
playability ★★
features ★★★
overall ★★★
ratings from one to five stars
System requirements
- Windows '95
- Pentium or better
- 16 MB of RAM
- 2X CD-ROM or better
- SVGA graphics card
over my players to the point where I could choose my pitch speed, type and location when pitching. When batting I could choose my swing type (power, contact, normal, bunt) and location. I experimented with different pitchers, batting orders and stadiums. I modified the camera angles to watch the action from different perspectives. Nothing I did made me want to play this game.
I am a fan of professional baseball, so I really wanted to enjoy Front Page Sports" "Baseball Pro '88." Maybe if I'd tried to run my own league I would have felt more involved in the action. Maybe with a joystick the on-field play would have seemed more exciting. Maybe if I had competed against another person rather than the computer I would have wanted to play for hours.
With enough time and effort, I might have found the right combination of options to make me like this game. Computer games should be enticing, but playing "Baseball Pro '98" simply was tedious.
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